Last week at yoga, I was talking with my instructor about her life right now and whether or not she was overwhelmed. And she said, well, for the average person, my life would not be overwhelming. But I'm not a busy person. I do best when I am unbusy. So this feels like a lot.

Oh. How her words resonated with me. I wish being unbusy appealed to me. I wish that busyness wasn't so fulfilling.

Since June, I have been working my tail off on slowing down. It's undoubtedly been more work saying no and keeping my schedule open than it ever was to run around like a wild woman. It's just not in my nature. But, in this time, I have felt more reflective than ever, have had time to connect with friends in more meaningful ways and have learned a lot about myself.

I have found that I am happiest, and the best version of myself:

• When I get enough sleep. This is the first time that I can remember since middle school that I am consistently getting more than seven hours of sleep each night. And I feel like the king.
• When I eat well. Clean.
• When I work out every day. (not a revelation)
• When I take time to connect with people. In person. On the phone. From afar.
• When I laugh. A lot.

Before I started this process, though, and actually oftentimes still, I get scared that I will lose my ability to be wildly busy. That I might soon forget how to multi-task or get a million things done at once. That someday I might be overwhelmed by basic tasks like getting my kids to school, like my yoga instructor. And most of the time, I can talk myself out of this thought process, but yesterday I stumbled upon this post by Sarah Tucker and it made me feel one million times better. When we are more reflective, and spend more time figuring out who we are and what we want, we make much more productive decisions to advance our futures.

Sarah also led me to Lara Casey's Get Fired Up post, which you should read. I now have a solid list of: what I am afraid of (who knew!?), what I want, who should be by my side to make it happen and how it's going to happen. 

All because I decided I needed to sleep more than 5.5 hours each night. These really are sweet dreams.

PS: If you're feeling equally as inspired as I am, you should enter to win a scholarship to Making Things Happen. I hope we both win :)
image one and two